1. Field of the Invention:
The invention relates to an active wrist splint or a wrist brace, more particularly a wrist brace which is fitted to the forearm and hand. The brace is to be used in the rehabilitation of the wrist joint through rigid splinting, through application of resistance and force; to be used to lessen shock and vibration to the joint; to be used to apply specific pressure and support to the ligaments of the wrist and hand and to be used as a tool to help prevent injury or re-injury to the wrist by interactively damping shocks to the joint and by helping to prevent the wrist from exceeding its preset ranges of motion in all deviations.
Current art may satisfy one or more of the criteria throughout complex means but no brace satisfies all the criteria in a simple user friendly manner. No art form provides for shock and vibration absorption in all deviations through adjustable dampers. No art form provides interactive damping, force application, resistance, and adjustable ranges of motion/lock out to the wrist joint while at the same time providing support to specific ligaments of the wrist and hand.
2. Description of Related Art:
Current art forms offer different means to restrain the wrist in a variety of fixed positions during the healing process. Some art forms claim to be dynamic in the sense that the fixed positions are adjustable in one or two deviations. Some art forms provide force through means of springs, coils, elastics, tension beams, and screws to promote or resist hand movement up or down. None provide for interactive easily adjustable dynamic control of flexion, extension, ulnar, and radial deviations. Some may be adjusted to fixed positions in all deviations but none allow the interactive controlled application of the rate of movement, force application, resistance, damping, and range limitation in all deviations. Most art forms require significant modifications to achieve multiple functions and none provide for adjustable damping.
Reese Sr., U.S. Pat No. 5,279,545 claims to provide a simple brace to support and limit the movement of the wrist, one that is easily worn and adjusted. He accomplishes this but unfortunately his brace only provides adjustable limits of motion to the wrist. Reese Sr. defines the short comings of other related art: "Corbett, U.S. Pat. No. 2,312,523 discloses an adjustable tension splint which includes a front hand grip which limits the use of the users hand and requires loosening and tightening of a plurality of screws in order to adjust the tension of the splint. Similarly, the derotation brace of Carter, U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,044 utilizes a number of pins to limit the range of motion of parallel hinges on the brace. It would be substantially difficult for a user to adjust the brace to a more desirable position during use, and use of the hands would be limited". Furthermore, the brace largely limits the movement of the wrist joint to flexion or extension and has minimal provision for ulnar/radial deflection and no practical provision to apply positive force in either ulnar or radial deviations.
"An adjustable wrist splint such as Lindeman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,971 which enables lateral movement of the wrist is limited with regard to the disposition of the hand relative to the forearm". The brace is further limited in that it can only provide resistive forces, no positive forces. It cannot apply resistive forces in all deviations interactively. It takes a serious modification of the brace to accomplish isolated resistance. The brace could not be utilized in a large variety of circumstances much like the universal articulated splint of "Deprospero, U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,906 which includes an elaborate hand splint wherein each finger on the hand is immobilized such that an individual cannot use their hand if necessary".
Carter, U.S. Pat. No. 5,254,078 discloses a complex splint designed to provide a static but adjustable degree of up and down pressure to the hand while allowing lateral movement of the wrist. It accomplishes this through a "detailed process of manipulating a plurality of stop members". Pressure is applied to promote either a volar or dorsal transrelocation of the distal carpel row and to allow the wrist to pivot about a single axis which is ideal except limiting in application many of the same ways as Marx, U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,300 is Marx's brace applies positive force to make the wrist move up or down but also pivots in only one axis and requires a serious modification of the bulky rigging to accomplish this.